We Just Experienced the Warmest April on Record in Portland

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.

By Lizzy Acker

Time to iron your work shorts and break out your fancy flip flops: the weather's warm and it's getting warmer.

Matthew Cullen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told us over that phone that April 2016 was the warmest April ever recorded at the Portland Airport, where they began keeping records in 1940.

The average temperature, taken from the daily averages for the month, was 57.8 degrees. The previous record of 56.3 degrees was set in 2004.

The Portland Tribune has a chart, if you're into that sort of thing.

And May is already a lot warmer than usual.

"Yesterday at the Portland Airport, we got up to 82 degrees," Cullen said. "The normal for yesterday was 65 degrees—it's a very warm start to the month for sure."

But if your main concern is the veracity of nursery rhymes, we should still be OK on "April showers bring May flowers."

Cullen says that April was only a little below normal rainfall-wise, with 1.96 inches of total rainfall, which is .77 inches below average for the month.

"Despite that," he said, "we are at 18.02 inches for the year—just over 3.07 inches above normal."

Willamette Week

Explore more on:

april weatherglobal warmingNational Weather Servicerainweather

Lizzy Acker

Lizzy Acker

Lizzy Acker is Willamette Week's former web editor. Her first book, Monster Party, came out in 2010. She was born in Oregon, lived in San Francisco for almost eight years and then moved back to Oregon, just like everyone always knew she would.

Willamette Week’s Monthly Donor Drive is on! When you support WW, you help keep Portland's leaders accountable. Our journalism costs money and as a small, locally owned, free publication, we rely on reader support rather than corporate dollars.

Become a Monthly Donor!

Support Us